"That's why the Oregon Investment Council voted last week to sink $600 million in public employee pensions into a Texas private equity firm. Executives at Lone Star Funds say they expect 20 percent or higher returns in the "distressed" markets in the United States and abroad."
When the Public Utilities Commission voted several years ago to sell PGE to Enron, I said to myself I said: "this is a bad idea". When someone in the mortgage industry started hawking sub-prime loans, I said (to myself I said) "this is not a good idea".
Now I read about the Pension Fund Board voting to invest in a Texas company. Texas, in case you have forgotten, is the home of Enron, that pinnacle of fiscal responsibility (that was sarcasm, in case you missed it). This Texas outfit is promising 20% returns off of investing in mortgages gone bad, and I think to myself, I really ought to say something about this. So I am. It stinks!
Where do we get these people who sit on these boards? Do we have a recruiting team that scours Oregon looking for village idiots? Haven't these people heard of Andrew Wiederhorn and the great pension fund scandal? What do have to do, make gross stupidity a capital offense?
Update October 2016 replaced missing picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment